Interview dates: March 12, 2012 – March 30, 2012. Interviews: 1,008 Adults (18+)
Margin of error: +/- 3 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.
NOTE: All results show percentages among all respondents, unless otherwise labeled. Totals may occasionally sum to more than 100 percent due to rounding…

Overview

Overall, majorities of Americans say that global warming and clean energy should be among the nation’s priorities, want more action by elected officials, corporations and citizens themselves, and support a variety of climate change and energy policies, including holding fossil fuel companies responsible for all the “hidden costs” of their products. A majority also say they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who supports a “revenue neutral” tax shift from income taxes to fossil fuels, and that global warming will be one of the issues that determines their vote for President this fall.

• 72 percent of Americans think that global warming should be a very high (12%), high (28%), or medium (32%) priority for the president and Congress. Among registered voters, 84 percent of Democrats, 68 percent of Independents, and 52 percent of Republicans think global warming should be a priority.

• 92 percent of Americans think that developing sources of clean energy should be a very high (31%), high (38%), or medium (23%) priority for the president and Congress. Among registered voters, 96 percent of Democrats and Independents, and 84 percent of Republicans think clean energy should be a priority.

• 83 percent of Americans think that protecting the environment either improves economic growth and provides new jobs (58%) or has no effect on economic growth or jobs (25%). Only 17 percent think it reduces economic growth and costs jobs. When there is a conflict between the two, however, 62 percent of Americans say it is more important to protect the environment, even if it reduces economic growth, while 38 percent say economic growth is more important, even if it leads to economic problems. Among registered voters, 91 percent of Democrats, 77 percent of Independents, and 70 percent of Republicans think that overall, protecting the environment either improves economic growth and provides new jobs, or has no effect on economic growth or jobs. When there is a conflict between the two, however, 72 percent of Democrats, 63 percent of Independents, and 45 percent of Republicans say it is more important to protect the environment than economic growth.

• 70 percent of Americans say that corporations and industry should be doing more to address global warming, which is back up to levels last seen in the fall of 2008.

• 67 percent of Americans also say that citizens themselves should be doing more to address the issue.

• 58 percent of Americans say that Congress should be doing more to address global warming. The proportion that say Congress should be doing “much more” has increased four percentage points since May 2011 (up to 23%).

• 54 percent of Americans say that President Obama should be doing more to address the issue, while 25 percent say he is currently doing the right amount. Only 21 percent say he should do less.

• More than two-thirds of Americans (68%) say the U.S. should make either a large-scale or medium-scale effort to reduce global warming, even if this has large or moderate economic costs.

• A large majority of Americans (79%) supports funding more research into renewable energy sources. Among registered voters, 91 percent of Democrats, 80 percent of Independents, and 74 percent of Republicans support this policy. However, perhaps due in part to news stories about Solyndra, “strong support” for more research into renewables fell from 53 percent in the fall of 2008 to 36 percent in March 2012. Meanwhile opposition to renewable energy research more than doubled, from 8 percent in 2008 to 21 percent in 2012.

• 76 percent support providing tax rebates for people who purchase more fuel-efficient vehicles or solar panels. Among registered voters, 89 percent of Democrats, 76 percent of Independents, and 63 percent of Republicans support this policy.

• 75 percent support regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant. Among registered voters, 84 percent of Democrats, 77 percent of Independents, and 67 percent of Republicans support this policy.

• 65 percent of Americans support an international treaty requiring the U.S. to cut carbon dioxide 90% by the year 2050. Among registered voters, 78 percent of Democrats, 64 percent of Independents, and 42 percent of Republicans support this policy.

• 63 percent support requiring utilities to produce at least 20% of their electricity from renewable energy sources, even if household costs increase by $100 a year. “Strong support,” however, has decreased from 31 percent in 2008 to 20 percent now. Among registered voters, 74 percent of Democrats, 65 percent of Independents, and 47 percent of Republicans support this policy.

• 63 percent say the U.S. should act on its own to reduce greenhouse gases, regardless of what other nations do.

• 62 percent support expanded offshore drilling for oil and natural gas off the U.S. coast. Likely due to the BP oil spill, however, “strongly support” for expanding offshore drilling for oil and natural gas off the U.S. coast has fallen from 37 percent in 2008 to 24 percent now.

There is a substantial difference between the two parties on offshore drilling, however. 89 percent of Republicans support it, compared to 53 percent of Democrats. Among those who “strongly support” offshore drilling, the difference is even greater: 42 percent of Republicans strongly support it vs. 15 percent of Democrats. By contrast, only 2 percent of Republicans “strongly oppose” expanded offshore drilling, while 20 percent of Democrats do.

• 61 percent of Americans support holding the fossil fuel industry (coal, oil and natural gas) responsible for “all the hidden costs we pay for citizens who get sick from polluted air and water, military costs to maintain our access to foreign oil, and the environmental costs of spills and accidents.” Among registered voters, 68 percent of Democrats, 72 percent of Independents, and 54 percent of Republicans support this policy.

• Likely due to the Fukushima nuclear accident, support for building more nuclear power plants has fallen dramatically – from 61 percent who supported it in 2008 to just 42 percent now. Among registered voters, 37 percent of Democrats, 48 percent of Independents, and 53 percent of Republicans support this policy.

• The country is divided about whether to eliminate all federal subsidies for all form of energy (oil, gas, coal, nuclear and renewables) – 47 percent of Americans support ending all energy subsidies while 54 percent oppose it.1 Interestingly, however, there are not substantial political differences, with Democrats, Independents, and Republicans all about equally supportive or opposed.

• Only 50 percent of Americans have heard about the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. Among registered voters, Republicans (66%) and Independents (69%) are more likely to have heard of it, compared to Democrats (48%). Of those Americans who have heard of it, two-thirds (69%) support building the pipeline, including 87 percent of registered Republicans, 68 percent of Independents, and 50 percent of Democrats.

• By a margin of 3 to 1, Americans say they would be more likely to vote for a political candidate who supports a “revenue neutral” tax shift. This shift would increase taxes on coal, oil and natural gas, and reduce the federal income tax by an equal amount, while creating jobs and decreasing pollution. 2 61 percent of Americans say they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who supports such a tax shift, while 20 percent say they would be less likely.

Among registered voters, Republicans would be more likely to vote for a candidate who supports such a tax shift by a 2 to 1 margin – 51 percent would be more likely to vote for such a candidate, while 25 percent would be less likely. Independents would be more likely to vote for such a candidate by a nearly 3 to 1 margin – 60 percent vs. 22 percent. Finally, Democrats would be more likely to vote for such a candidate by a more than 5 to 1 margin – 74 percent vs. 13 percent.

• 55 percent of Americans say that global warming will be either the single most important (3%) or one of several important issues (52%) in determining their vote for president this year.

Among registered voters, 63 percent of Democrats say global warming will be either the single most important issue (3%) or one of several important issues (60%) in determining their vote. 59 percent of Independents and 43 percent of Republicans say it will be either the single most important issue (2% respectively) or one of several important issues determining their vote (57% and 41% respectively).

(NOTE: These results are from a nationally representative survey conducted by Knowledge Networks. The survey was fielded March 12 through March 30, 2012 with 1,008 American adults. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3 percent, with 95 percent confidence.)

Review of OIL IN THEIR BLOOD, The American Decades by Mark S. Friedman

OIL IN THEIR BLOOD, The American Decades, the second volume of Herman K. Trabish’s retelling of oil’s history in fiction, picks up where the first book in the series, OIL IN THEIR BLOOD, The Story of Our Addiction, left off. The new book is an engrossing, informative and entertaining tale of the Roaring 20s, World War II and the Cold War. You don’t have to know anything about the first historical fiction’s adventures set between the Civil War, when oil became a major commodity, and World War I, when it became a vital commodity, to enjoy this new chronicle of the U.S. emergence as a world superpower and a world oil power.

As the new book opens, Lefash, a minor character in the first book, witnesses the role Big Oil played in designing the post-Great War world at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. Unjustly implicated in a murder perpetrated by Big Oil agents, LeFash takes the name Livingstone and flees to the U.S. to clear himself. Livingstone’s quest leads him through Babe Ruth’s New York City and Al Capone’s Chicago into oil boom Oklahoma. Stymied by oil and circumstance, Livingstone marries, has a son and eventually, surprisingly, resolves his grievances with the murderer and with oil.

In the new novel’s second episode the oil-and-auto-industry dynasty from the first book re-emerges in the charismatic person of Victoria Wade Bridger, “the woman everybody loved.” Victoria meets Saudi dynasty founder Ibn Saud, spies for the State Department in the Vichy embassy in Washington, D.C., and – for profound and moving personal reasons – accepts a mission into the heart of Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe. Underlying all Victoria’s travels is the struggle between the allies and axis for control of the crucial oil resources that drove World War II.

As the Cold War begins, the novel’s third episode recounts the historic 1951 moment when Britain’s MI-6 handed off its operations in Iran to the CIA, marking the end to Britain’s dark manipulations and the beginning of the same work by the CIA. But in Trabish’s telling, the covert overthrow of Mossadeq in favor of the ill-fated Shah becomes a compelling romance and a melodramatic homage to the iconic “Casablanca” of Bogart and Bergman.

Monty Livingstone, veteran of an oil field youth, European WWII combat and a star-crossed post-war Berlin affair with a Russian female soldier, comes to 1951 Iran working for a U.S. oil company. He re-encounters his lost Russian love, now a Soviet agent helping prop up Mossadeq and extend Mother Russia’s Iranian oil ambitions. The reunited lovers are caught in a web of political, religious and Cold War forces until oil and power merge to restore the Shah to his future fate. The romance ends satisfyingly, America and the Soviet Union are the only forces left on the world stage and ambiguity is resolved with the answer so many of Trabish’s characters ultimately turn to: Oil.

Commenting on a recent National Petroleum Council report calling for government subsidies of the fossil fuels industries, a distinguished scholar said, “It appears that the whole report buys these dubious arguments that the consumer of energy is somehow stupid about energy…” Trabish’s great and important accomplishment is that you cannot read his emotionally engaging and informative tall tales and remain that stupid energy consumer. With our world rushing headlong toward Peak Oil and epic climate change, the OIL IN THEIR BLOOD series is a timely service as well as a consummate literary performance.

Review of OIL IN THEIR BLOOD, The Story of Our Addiction by Mark S. Friedman

"...ours is a culture of energy illiterates." (Paul Roberts, THE END OF OIL)

OIL IN THEIR BLOOD, a superb new historical fiction by Herman K. Trabish, addresses our energy illiteracy by putting the development of our addiction into a story about real people, giving readers a chance to think about how our addiction happened. Trabish's style is fine, straightforward storytelling and he tells his stories through his characters.

The book is the answer an oil family's matriarch gives to an interviewer who asks her to pass judgment on the industry. Like history itself, it is easier to tell stories about the oil industry than to judge it. She and Trabish let readers come to their own conclusions.

She begins by telling the story of her parents in post-Civil War western Pennsylvania, when oil became big business. This part of the story is like a John Ford western and its characters are classic American melodramatic heroes, heroines and villains.

In Part II, the matriarch tells the tragic story of the second generation and reveals how she came to be part of the tales. We see oil become an international commodity, traded on Wall Street and sought from London to Baku to Mesopotamia to Borneo. A baseball subplot compares the growth of the oil business to the growth of baseball, a fascinating reflection of our current president's personal career.

There is an unforgettable image near the center of the story: International oil entrepreneurs talk on a Baku street. This is Trabish at his best, portraying good men doing bad and bad men doing good, all laying plans for wealth and power in the muddy, oily alley of a tiny ancient town in the middle of everywhere. Because Part I was about triumphant American heroes, the tragedy here is entirely unexpected, despite Trabish's repeated allusions to other stories (Casey At The Bat, Hamlet) that do not end well.

In the final section, World War I looms. Baseball takes a back seat to early auto racing and oil-fueled modernity explodes. Love struggles with lust. A cavalry troop collides with an army truck. Here, Trabish has more than tragedy in mind. His lonely, confused young protagonist moves through the horrible destruction of the Romanian oilfields only to suffer worse and worse horrors, until--unexpectedly--he finds something, something a reviewer cannot reveal. Finally, the question of oil must be settled, so the oil industry comes back into the story in a way that is beyond good and bad, beyond melodrama and tragedy.

Along the way, Trabish gives readers a greater awareness of oil and how we became addicted to it. Awareness, Paul Roberts said in THE END OF OIL, "...may be the first tentative step toward building a more sustainable energy economy. Or it may simply mean that when our energy system does begin to fail, and we begin to lose everything that energy once supplied, we won't be so surprised."

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